1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to gloves. More particularly, the invention relates to a protective glove used in the food packaging and processing industries and more particularly the red meat and poultry processing industries. Specifically, the invention relates to an ambidextrous glove that may be used on either of the left hand or the right hand and in which the four finger regions and the thumb region of the glove are aligned along a common axis.
2. Background Information
Gloves are used in the food processing and packaging industries to protect workers' hands from contamination and injury. Workers typically wear a liner that is a cotton knit material or is made from aramid fibers that protect against cuts and abrasions. A thicker, waterproof glove is worn over the liner to protect the worker. These waterproof gloves are typically manufactured from different types of polymers depending on the type of food processing applications they are to be used in. In the chicken processing industry, for instance, these exterior waterproof gloves are typically made from natural rubber latex. In the beef and pork processing industries the gloves are typically made from a variety of synthetic rubbers such as acrylonitrile-butadiene (nitrile), polychloroprene or polyvinyl chloride. The materials used for the gloves in the two industries differ because naturally occurring chemicals in chicken fat tend to attack materials other than natural rubber latex. This leads to a premature breakdown of the glove surface and the glove starts to swell. Once this occurs, the glove has to be thrown away. Since the gloves come in pairs, workers typically have to discard both gloves when only one of them has been damaged. In even a small food processing and packaging plant as many as a container load of undamaged gloves need to be disposed of each year. This tends to drive up the cost of doing business.
There is therefore a need in the industry for an improved glove that will assist in reducing the number of gloves that have to be purchased and discarded.